A cure for insomnia

02.27.09

Counting sheep keeps the scientists awake at night

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:13 pm by Administrator

I heard something absolutely retarded on the news yesterday. Poor sheep. Scientists are still concerned about the amount of methane gas that sheep produce and its contribution to climate change. So they’re developing a way to stop sheep from belching.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? What about the physical repercussions to the sheep? Obviously their bodies need to get rid of that gas. Shouldn’t they instead get rid of the large scale commercial sheep farms? Isn’t that really what the problem is?

As my sister, Dana (yes, she has a name), said, “At some point in time humans are going to have to realize we can’t control and change whatever we want to serve our purpose without there being SERIOUS after affects! (Multiple exclamation marks removed.) ‘Look, we stopped sheep from belching – now we can drive more fossil fuel burning cars!’ ”

Scientists caving in to corporate money needs. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am so very disappointed.

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Stay married and save the planet?

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:05 pm by Administrator

My sister brought me attention to another interesting article. (Yahoo News is such a good source of inadvertent entertainment.)

Staying married is better for the planet because divorce leads the newly single to live more wasteful lifestyles, an Australian lawmaker said Tuesday.

I’m not going to entirely argue this point. There is evidence to show that single habitators do use more resources than co-habitators. However, my sister made a good counter-argument: What about couples, empty nesters as well as those who never had children, who “own, heat, etc. their 2000 square foot homes for just the two of them? Isn’t that just as wasteful”?

But my real issue with this centres on my suspicion that the lawyer isn’t actually concerned about the environment.

“We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also environmental impact as well on the footprint,” AAP quoted him as saying.

There isn’t really a social problem with ~divorce~; there are many well-adjusted divorcees and children of divorcees. There is, however, a social problem with ~greed~, which causes: people to have nasty divorces, take it out on their children,…

… investors to swindle people out of their life savings, CEOs to demand way too many perks, thus causing our economic crisis… I think you see where this is going.

Sounds to me like this is a socially-conservative lawyer who is trying to use the environment to guilt people into staying in (unhappy) relationships. And that really pisses me off.

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Octomom

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:50 pm by Administrator

I can’t imagine there is a person in North America who doesn’t know whom I’m talking about. But I’m actually not going to talk about the woman in question, who apparently has a serious obsession with having kids. I want to talk about the fertility specialists.

My thoughts stem from something in this article, which mirrors an article in The Globe and Mail (no longer available online).

“A number of commentators are saying a woman with six kids should not be allowed medical treatment to have additional ones, and I think, at a common sense level, that makes good sense,” Tipton said.

“However, to make that work, that means someone is going to start deciding for other people how, when and why they can have children. That’s a very big step and one that we might not be prepared to take.”

There are a lot of ethical issues here, the most important being the mother’s ability to care for these children. I’m not talking about providing them with love – I have no reason to doubt her capabilities in that department. But love won’t fill their stomachs, or keep a roof over their heads. And it’s because of issues like this that physicians must always think of the ethical ramifications of their actions.

However, it seems that some (thankfully not most) doctors don’t think they should have to. They like playing god, but the responsibility of using ethics and morals brings their job back into the world of the human and mundane. Let them create the miracle – the peons can deal with the details.

Heaven forbid.

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Day 1

Posted in Uncategorized at 4:03 pm by Administrator

So I’ve decided to start a blog. Really, it’s just a collection of my thoughts. I could put them on Facebook, but since Facebook wants to own everything I publish there… nah. That was the main reason for getting my own website in the first place – I wanted to own all the rights to my photos.

The thing is, I’m opinionated. And I’m confident enough to believe, even assert, that I’m not stupid. (Some may argue that constitutes arrogance. So be it.) I’ve had some interesting discussions with my sister in the last while, and I thought I’d put them here to share with whatever poor soul happens to wander my way. (Muahahaha) Wow, I’m making myself sound like a predator.

And since I’m currently waiting for World of Warcraft to authenticate my login (again?), I will dredge up those emails and transfer my thoughts to here.